Looking For Pearls: The creativity and energy of students

Thursday

Aug 15, 2013 at 10:38 PM

Ben Goggins

A friend who was graduated from the University of Georgia has always claimed that a tree in Athens boosted his GPA by at least a letter grade. Like his father before him, before every exam in his junior and senior years, he visited a famous old oak tree to settle down and quiet his mind.

Studying hard was step one. But he says that touching "The Tree That Owns Itself" and carrying its acorns in his pocket to class was a family ritual that felt like it gave him a secret edge.

He's a surgeon in Boston now, and he's found a new tree. A chestnut tree connected to Anne Frank, and the idea to bring it to Boston started with one young girl.

A few years ago, Aliyah Finkel of Newton, Mass., was looking for a meaningful Bat Mitzvah project. She found that the chestnut tree behind the Secret Annex where Anne Frank hid in Amsterdam during World War II had died of old age.

The tree was a window to the world for Anne, a connection to beauty and hope, and she wrote of its meaning in her diary. She wrote about the raindrops glistening on its bare branches in winter and the sun warming its leaves in spring.

Aliyah learned that seedlings had been sprouted from the tree and that 11 were awarded to the U.S. She got the mayor, along with parks, school, and library officials, to submit a proposal to bring one to Boston.

They got it, and in early June, Aliyah helped plant it on Boston Common. My surgeon friend was there for the ceremony with his granddaughter.

It's close to his hospital. So his routine since then is to visit it each week, to pause and say a prayer that his surgeries go well and save lives.

He said he was impressed that this one girl, about Anne Frank's age, had spearheaded the effort to get the sapling. I am not surprised. In April, I attended the Holocaust Remembrance program at the Jewish Educational Alliance and saw firsthand the creativity and energy of our own middle and high school students.

The theme for the program this year was "The Righteous Among the Nations: Stories of Rescue by Gentiles." Many students responded with submissions of poetry, prose, and art.

The winning entries were on display, and they were deeply touching. Program director, Sherry Dolgoff, said it was hard to choose the winners because they were all so good. "Children at that age have such empathy and want to end suffering and injustice."

Elizabeth Miller of St. Vincent's won first prize for high school with her moving story of nuns who risked death to save a Jewish family. Amber Reagan and Kaley Pigman also won with stories of bravery and sacrifice.

Ora Damelin of Rambam Day won first prize for middle school with "The Hiding Place," a story of the sisterly love that grew between a Polish girl and the Jewish girl her family hid in their cellar. Other winners were Tomer Locker, Jordyn Stoltzman, and Dalibeth Fontanez Gomez, with stories of Oskar Schindler, Irina Sendler, Corrie ten Boom, and Miep Gies.

The art on display at the JEA also showed the kind hearts and passion of the students who submitted it. It's hard to forget Blake Willoughby's "Abandoned Childhood," a baby's suitcase, or Maddie McCormick's "Parallel Lives," girls trying to touch through a brick wall. Or Kathryn Farrahar's "Shoes on the Danube."

And you could feel the kids' emotions behind the collaborative pieces; "We Won't Forget You" by East Broad sixth graders, the "Letters to Anne Frank" collage by Georgetown and Hesse students, the elegant and ghostly butterflies from Charles Ellis, the wood, metal, and wire "Tree of Life" sculpture by Garrison sixth and seventh graders, the paper pastel people by Godley Station seventh graders, or the colorful quilt-like "Never Again" by Southwest Middle School sixth graders.

My Boston friend looks forward to the chestnut tree growing tall over the years, a living connection to what Anne Frank saw from her window. And he expects that his granddaughter will one day carry chestnuts from it in her pocket to class.

Ben Goggins, a retired marine biologist, lives on Tybee Island. He can be reached at 786-6181 or bengoggins9@gmail.com.